A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
